


my judgment burned

by MiniNephthys



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Gen, Roleswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 20:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4151874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniNephthys/pseuds/MiniNephthys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where the Reapers are the Players and the Players are the Reapers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reaper Side

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably just be a twoshot. Hopefully.

Two Players are frantically scanning the area when Neku passes by.

“Seriously, where is he, we’ve been trying to find him all day!” the one with the spiky hair says to the one in the hoodie.

Neku decides he’d better stop. “You guys looking for somebody?”

“Yeah, the guy we showed up here with, Tenho,” says Spiky. “We tried to make a three-way...”

“Partnership,” the hoodied guy clarifies. “Not the other kind. We’re not like that.”

“-but we couldn’t do it, so he ditched us looking for somebody to partner up with. Haven’t seen the guy since.”

“Partnerships in the Game are only two per,” says Neku. “Otherwise you’d all just make a huge blob of partners and everybody would win.”

Spiky sighs. “Yeah, we figured that, but we just want to know if he’s okay, y’know? Hey, you know the Game, can you keep an eye out for him for us?”

Neku has a bad feeling about it even without checking. “...If you’re looking for another Player, you might as well stop scanning, you can’t sense other Players that way.”

“I told you,” says Hoodie. “You never listen when it’s important.”

“Shut up, BJ.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up, 777! He could be Erased right now!”

Neku leaves them to their shouting. He’s got a Composer to talk to.

* * *

“Doesn’t something seem kinda weird about this round?” asks Nao. “Like, really super weird?”

“You mean besides Beat finally getting to be a Game Master?” asks Sota, glancing his way.

“Hey, shut up, I’m doing an awesome job!” says Beat. “So far!”

“Nobody said you weren’t,” says Nao. “But, uh… I was reading the info on this round, and maybe I didn’t count right, but weren’t there an odd number of Players this time?”

A silence falls over the Reapers’ meeting room.

“I don’t get it,” says Beat, finally. “So what if it’s odd?”

Sota sighs. “Partners are only in groups of two, right?”

“Right,” says Beat.

“And an odd number can’t be evenly divisible by two.”

“Uh… sure.”

“So someone isn’t going to get paired up, no matter what.”

“Yeah?”

“So someone is definitely going to be Erased no matter what they do,” says Sota. “That’s bad.”

Beat takes a moment to puzzle it over, but when he gets it, it’s obvious by the contortions of his face. “That’s all kinds of bad! What the hell is she thinking?!”

“I’m sure the Composer’s got her reasons…” says Nao. “But I don’t like it one bit.”

* * *

“Everybody’s asking why you picked an odd number of people. I keep telling them not to worry about it, but they’re really persistent.” Shiki rubs her forehead like a headache’s coming on. “What should I do?”

Rhyme sighs. “It’s okay. I don’t blame them for wondering.”

“Even Beat wants to know, and normally he just goes along with whatever you say,” says Shiki. “What’s going on?”

“An odd number of people qualified for this round. That’s happened before. Normally, I just pick an even number of them, and hope they all get paired off neatly… and maybe that’s better. But it means I have to pick somebody to not even get a chance to play.” Rhyme stares at the fish underneath the floor. “I don’t like doing that.”

“You’re way too nice to be the Composer,” says Shiki.

“I’m lucky I have a good Conductor,” says Rhyme. “Or else I’d be in trouble.”


	2. Player Side

After getting separated from Sho, Sanae finds him staring through a shop’s window. More specifically, he has his eye on one particular piece of clothing, with stats higher than anything either he or Sho had on right now.

“Look at that beautiful number spread,” says Sho, once he notices Sanae’s approach. “I haven’t seen so many pluses since commutative addition.”

It’s a nice piece of equipment. There’s just one little issue.

“You know that that’s a skirt,” says Sanae, one eyebrow raised.

Sho groans. “But the numbers. The numbers! I can take negative dignity for positive beauty!”

Sho Minamimoto would absolutely go around in a skirt if he thought the numbers were good enough, Sanae realizes. He would also absolutely punch anyone who mentioned it. Better cut this off at the head just for the sake of peace.

“There’s one number you forgot to crunch,” he says. Sho stares at him blankly, so he goes on: “The price. For that cost we can get you a shirt and pants that add up to bigger bonuses.”

“...I knew that,” says Sho, only a tiny bit more subdued. “I was just considering the theory.”

Sanae pats his shoulder gently. If he so much as implied that Sho wasn’t good at practical math, his partner would bite his head off.

* * *

“While I appreciate the chance to stop and eat,” says Konishi primly, over a bowl of minestrone, “we ought to be finishing the mission for the day.”

Higashizawa shrugs his massive shoulders. “The mission can wait.”

She frowns severely. “The negative consequences of not completing the mission far outweigh-”

“Other Players will most likely complete it for us, and even if no one does, we will still have the time to finish it ourselves after the meal,” he says. “Strategically, a good meal can make the difference between a close victory and a loss. Our body’s needs cannot be ignored even now that we are dead.”

“...I suppose you have a point,” she says. “But let’s make it a quick one.”

“To reap full benefit of a meal,” Higashizawa says, “you must enjoy your food. Savor it. Experience your food fully.”

She frowns even further, and wonders if there was any other Player she could have used as a better partner.

* * *

For the hundredth time this week, Uzuki shrieks at Kariya, “When are you going to start fighting seriously?!”

Kariya pulls his lollipop out of his mouth to answer. “When I need to, I guess.”

“When you- they’re trying to Erase us and you don’t want to give it your all? You’ve got some kind of death wish, right?” She huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “Or maybe you just think I’ll pick up all your slack!”

“That’s not it,” he says. “I trust you. If it wasn’t for the way the Game works, you could probably wipe out all the Noise on your own. So I don’t need to fight too hard when I know you’ve got my back.”

Uzuki stares at him for a moment, before yelling, “That’s the exact same thing!”

* * *

“Kitaniji,” says Joshua, “do you know anything about the Composer?”

“Let’s see…” Kitaniji mulls over it for a moment. “From the Reapers, I’ve heard that the Composer is a girl, possibly young. Supposedly, a benevolent employer, though they sometimes don’t understand her whims.”

“And the Conductor?” Joshua asks.

“We spoke with her at the beginning of the Game. She seems lively, and I had the impression that she takes her duties with the gravity they’re due.”

“What do you think the relationship between the Composer and the Conductor should be like?” Joshua continues.

“Should be, or is?” asks Kitaniji.

Joshua fiddles with his cell phone. “Should be.”

“I imagine that the Conductor would have a great respect for the Composer, as their only superior, and the Composer would have a Conductor that they could trust and rely on to carry out their wishes.” Kitaniji lowers his shades a little, to get a better look at him. “Is something on your mind?”

“No, nothing,” says Joshua. “Just curious.”


End file.
